Organizer information:

CASA PIP is founded and run by filmmakers Joële Walinga and Daniel Warth. We believe in the irreplaceable value of experimentation towards the conception and creation of great art, and have designed this residency to offer filmmakers the time, peace, space, and general rulelessness to move meaningfully forward on a project, a thought, an experiment, research, practice, and more and more and more. We also encourage residents to slow down and play, and welcome applications from people whose undertaking is simply to rest and recover, which we consider vital to the creative process. 

Founders’ bios:

Joële Walinga
Joële is an award-winning Canadian visual artist and filmmaker. She is an alumna of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival’s talent development programme Berlinale Talents, and the 2022 Zurich Film Festival Academy.

Daniel Warth
Daniel is an award-winning Portuguese-Canadian screenwriter and film director. His first narrative feature Dim the Fluorescents won the Grand Jury Award at the Slamdance Film Festival and was called “One of the Year’s Strongest Debuts” by The New York Times.

Title & Description: 

CASA PIP: A free residency for filmmakers in the mountains of Portugal. 

Founded by filmmakers and designed for filmmakers, CASA PIP is a residency in a remote village nestled deep within the Portuguese mountains. CASA PIP offers filmmakers peace and space to work independently in any capacity they require, giving residents sole access to the entire house for work periods of up to a month. CASA PIP is an unstructured, no-rules residency. Residents may use the space to write, research, edit, experiment, play, think, or rest, depending on their specific creative needs. 

Jury information:

Decisions are made by a jury of film professionals. This year’s jury includes Winnie Wang, Jesse Cumming, and Ana David.

Winnie Wang is a writer and cultural worker. Their writing can be found in Cinema Scope, Los Angeles Review of Books, Documentary Magazine, Toronto Star, Little White Lies, and POV. Currently, Winnie works in the industry department at TIFF. In the past, they served as an associate producer at CBC, and as an industry programmer at Hot Docs. Winnie also works with MDFF, a Toronto-based production and distribution company with a monthly screening series at the TIFF Lightbox.

Ana David is a festival programmer and curator working between Portugal and Berlin. She’s an advisor to the official programme of the Berlinale since 2024, a member of the advisory board of Berlinale Panorama since 2017, and currently programmes at Márgenes (Madrid) and Queer Lisboa, which she has co-directed in the past.

Jesse Cumming is a curator, writer, and researcher. He’s Associate Curator for the Wavelengths section at Toronto International Film Festival, having previously served as the section’s Programming Associate. He has served as a programmer with Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, and as a consultant with the Berlinale Forum and Open City Documentary Festival.

Key dates:

  • Official launch October 15, 2025(Open call)
  • Deadline December 15 2025
  • Applicants notified of results by the end of January 2026. From these submissions, we will invite four residents per year.

More general info: 

The residency
Our residencies are fluid and self-determined. Residents will be given full, free access to the house for a period of up to one full month to use as they please. There is no curriculum or structure outside of what residents choose for themselves. Residents may come alone, and they may also bring their collaborators, their family, or their friends. Residents are encouraged to use their time in whatever particular way suits them, and we hope that the surrounding area, and the comfort of the house, can provide needed quiet time for research, writing, experimentation, reflection, and play. 

The house
Located in a small village deep in the Serra do Açor mountain range in Central Portugal, CASA PIP is a modest and peaceful, typical village house. The house has one bedroom, one living room, one dining room, one studio workshop, a fully equipped kitchen, and two bathrooms (one with a shower/bathtub combination). The house is very quiet. In the basement there is a laundry washer and dryer. From the windows we look out onto a large expanse of green mountains. 

The application

Our goal with applications is primarily to learn about what you’re interested in doing (or not doing) at the residency, and to get a brief idea about you and about your work. You can tell us about a project you are working on that you’d like to continue at the residency, or about a thought you want to develop, or something you want to experiment with, or practice, or learn, etc. Eligible activities are infinite. Eligible applicants include directors, writers, actors, editors, cinematographers, sound designers, composers, and anyone else involved in the making of films. Applications should include a brief description of your proposed activities, a brief biography, and an optional link to a sample of your work. There is an application fee of €35 – this allows us to create, maintain, and operate this residency, to cover our administrative and processing fees, to pay our jurors, and to offer the residency free of charge. 

How decisions are made

All applications are reviewed by our jury, who make their final decisions at the end of January. Applications are evaluated based on the quality of the applicant’s work and artistic perspective, and the value which the residency will offer them. Applications for specific and outlined work plans are just as welcome as applications for as-yet vague but passionate goals to experiment, think, discover, or learn. Please visit our jury page to learn more about this year’s jurors. 

Contact Information: 

ResidencyAccommodation